In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself.
This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes.
Individualistic rather than collective in nature, it produces a view of oneself as a single entity engaged in competition with others of one's social and economic standing, rather than as part of a group with unified experiences, struggles, and interests.
Ron Eyerman writes that Lukács defined false consciousness as "the distorted perception and beliefs an individual or a social class acquires through their life activities in capitalist society.
"[8] The false consciousness concept was further developed by Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and the early Frankfurt School of critical theory, as well as by French philosopher Henri Lefebvre.
[8][11] In the latter part of the 20th century, "false consciousness" began to be used in a non-Marxian context, specifically in relation to oppression based on sexual orientation, gender, race and ethnicity.
In a 1984 paper, the economist Marshall I. Pomer argued that members of the proletariat disregard the true nature of class relations because of their faith in the possibility, and even likelihood, of upward mobility.
was to a large extent an examination of how false consciousness had spread across the poorest counties of the Great Plains states: "He [Frank] shows how the Republicans and their media voices—Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and so on—appeal to ordinary people with a class-conscious anger at 'the elite.'